I notice here that Wikipedia claims that one of Augustine’s teachings against Pelagius was as follows:

Children dying without baptism are excluded from both the Kingdom of heaven and eternal life.

Why did Augustine think this was true?

If you think the answer is obvious, bear in mind that even though Augustine knew and taught that baptism was a means of grace and ordinarily the way in which a person received the forgiveness of sins and all other blessings of the New Covenant, he did not think that a believer who was barred from baptism was therefore damned.

While Christians in the early centuries saw baptism as the ordinary means of grace they also knew that believers would not be separated from Christ just because providence (often a violent death as a martyr) separated them from baptism.

Believers would be saved. Period.

They said many things about baptism to those who were holding back (and thus really holding back a credible confession of faith), but I don’t think they would ever apply these things to a known sincere believer who was prevented from being baptized.

So why make babies a special case?

If believers can be “baptized by desire” (i.e. count as baptized because they wanted to be baptized), then why can’t infants be considered baptized on the desire of the Christian parent(s)?

It makes no sense. It actually puts a higher standard on babies than adults. And it implicitly denies that our little ones are believers even from the womb, in plain contradiction to the Scriptures. As I have written:

I have sung many hymns about adult conversion from unbelief yet I’m not aware of one Psalm which speaks of that subject. On the other hand, I don’t think I’ve ever sung a hymn that called for me to put myself in the place of one who was regenerated in the womb. That is a sad state of affairs. These Psalms were sung in Israel’s public worship of God. They were means of discipling Israel and forming their outlook and expectations. Our hymns do the same but in the wrong direction.

The idea that their relationship began from the womb was not some sort of fantastic exception, but the general expectation.

And why shouldn’t all Christians possess the expectation that their children are believers? After all, that is what God has promised us. God promised “to be God to you and to your offspring after you” (Gen 17.7). The “lovingkindness of the Lord is from everlasting to everlasting on those who fear Him, and His righteousness to children’s children” (Psa 103.17).

Read the rest, including samples from the Psalms at: Mark Horne » Blog Archive » Dare we believe our children are converted? 1.

The only out I can give Augustine is that there were plenty many Christian parents married to a pagan spouse. They would have felt pressure to not baptize their children. But any pastor would have been worried about a child growing up in such a mixed household without the support of a Christian identity. Baptism would have told the child that he was not outside the covenant, but had privileges and responsibilities to appreciate and uphold. It would have added the threat of what happens to those who fall away over and above what happens to pagans in general.

But I still think that treating infants differently than older professing believers was a mistake. And I can’t help but wonder if it didn’t bear fruit in the rise of anabaptism more than a millennium later.